UPDATE: State Supreme Court issues stay of execution

ATLANTA — The Georgia Supreme Court has issued a stay of execution for a man who was to be executed this evening.

Warren Lee Hill Jr. was to be executed by lethal injection. Hill’s attorneys say he is mentally disabled and therefore should not be executed.

The state’s Supreme Court declined to stop the execution based on Hill’s claim that he is mentally disabled, The Associated Press reported. Rather, the court granted a stay while a recent change to execution protocol is challenged, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution reported.

The condemned man was to be executed last Wednesday, but the execution was rescheduled until this evening. Last week, Department of Corrections officials said they will start using “a single drug protocol” for executions.

Hill was sentenced to death on Aug. 2, 1991, for slaying of a fellow inmate in August 1990 at Lee Correctional Institution. The inmate was sleeping at the time of the attack and was not able to defend himself, according to prosecutors; at the time, Hill was already serving a life sentence for murdering a girlfriend.